Hyperventilating About The Iran Nuclear "Threat"

By Steve Hynd

As Iran puts forward a new package of negotiation proposals, the US is at the IAEA hyperventilating about the Iranian nuclear "threat".

Iran "is now either very near or in possession" of enough low-enriched uranium to produce one nuclear weapon, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday, offering some of toughest remarks uttered by an Obama administration official on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"We have serious concerns that Iran is deliberately attempting, at a minimum, to preserve a nuclear weapons option," Glyn Davies, Washington's chief envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in his inaugural speech to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which is based in Vienna.

Davies said that Iran's ongoing enrichment activity -- in defiance of three U.N. Security Council resolutions -- "moves Iran closer to a dangerous and destabilizing possible breakout capacity.

Davies is following closely in Greg Schulte's footsteps and following the Obama administration's policy of ignoring the 2007 NIE - so much for change, again.

Let's restate it: Iran has enough LEU to hypothetically further enrich into HEU and build a bomb...but:

1) As soon as they begin doing so, the IAEA's inspection regimen will notice and raise the red flag.

2) Iran couldn't finish enriching that HEU for a bomb until 2013 at the earliest...even if it started tomorrow.

3) There's no indication Iran has a working design for a weapon to put that hypothetical HEU in.

4) There's no indication that the Iranians have the know-how to make that hypothetical bomb small enough to fit on a missile.

5) There's no indication the Iranians have a missile good enough to throw that hypothetical small-enough bomb even as far as Israel.

6) It would still be only one bomb. Israel has hundreds and the Iranian leadership are not suicidal.

7) DNI Blair has stated that Iran has shown no sign it wishes to do all this in any case and is probably looking for a "virtual capacity" to build a bomb as a deterrent factor against external aggressors rather than looking to own nukes in truth.

8) The next head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, has said that he sees no sign in IAEA official documents that Iran is trying to develop a bomb.

10) Mohammed El Baradei, the current IAEA head, has said:

Nobody is sitting in Iran today developing nuclear weapons. Tehran doesn’t have an ongoing nuclear weapons program. But somehow, everyone in the West is talking about how Iran’s nuclear program is the greatest threat to the world. In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped.

11) All the documentation the U.S. has provided to the IAEA showing previous Iranian weaponization attempts is dodgy. Today, El Baradei said of that documentation:

If this information is real, there is a high probability that nuclear weaponization activities have taken place,' he said. 'But I should underline 'if' three times.'

12) The conclusion from this is that any Iranian pre-2003 experiments were all lab-scale or purely theoretical and designed to forward a strategy of possessing a "virtual deterrent" such as Japan's - the ability to build a bomb within a fairly short time frame if and only if they are attacked first. In that case, I'm simply not worried - let Iran keep its secrets.

Comments

[Rick Moran]

You have made the case against an Iranian bomb program as well as it can be made.

However, your critique - as well as any analysis that seeks to prove the opposite - is based on reading intent. Our national technical means are not capable of doing so, hence the fog surrounding the issue.

You may not have seen the NY Times piece this morning on the tremendous internal row going on at the IAEA over Iranian intent and the evidence that they are, at the least, trying to secure the capability to construct a bomb within 6 months of withdrawing from the NPT and kicking inspectors out of the country:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04nuke.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Some excellent background on the internal politics of this via the wonks:

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2484/safeguards-v-expo

Apparently, some in the IAEA who belong to the faction who thinks Iran is wanting to build a bomb have been pressing for the release of this unfinished report because it buttresses the case that the facility at Qom is the tip of the iceberg of secret sites that give the Iranians a "parallel fuel cycle" capability:

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2483/parallel-fuel-cycles-revisited

I am no expert but when arms control and non-proliferation types are worried, I think we should at least pay attention to what they're saying.

Specifically,as to your points above, a couple of observations:

1. Correct. As long as the LEU comes from Natanz. Your entire critique, in fact, is based on the logical notion that all major nuclear work is under inspection. I hope you're right. But the existence of the Qom facility has set off a new search for all sorts of labs and plants (as well as additional sources of processed ore). That link above to the chance of a parallel fuel cycle posits the idea that the logic of a secret enrichment facility dictates that other secret facilities exist.

2. Heh - talk about iffy. Continuing the fuel cycle to achieve 85-90% enrichment would take a lot less than 4 years - more like 18 months if the current expansion of centrifuge capacity at Natanz continues. Of course, this presupposes the IAEA being kicked out and withdrawal by Iran from the NPT.

3. How much should be assumed of the Iranian program? We wouldn't have a clue (unless we penetrated the Iranian program) whether they are modeling bomb designs or not. Should we assume they are? Should we assume that the close relationship they had with AQ Khan means they have a Pakistani design signed, sealed, and delivered?

4. Jackpot. They are years away from marrying any weapon with the Shahab II or III.

5. Yeah, but they are improving with every test.

6. This is true assuming there are indeed "rational actors" in Iran. All depends on this, actually - Israel's calculations as well as the west's. If true, then containment and deterrence can work. If not? If Israel comes to the alternate conclusion, they will bomb.In a nation the size of New Jersey, one or two nukes could literally destroy them. Yes Iran would also be destroyed - but if religious fanaticism enters into policy, all bets are off.

7. Japan has all but admitted a similar "virtual capacity" as you point out later. Question: Does that make Iran any less dangerous if true?

8-11: Read the wonks post above about the internal politics at the IAEA. ElBaradei has blown hot and cold about Iranian nukes for years - as he did with Saddam's "WMD." The consummate bureaucrat, he has had to deal with these factions for years. If I wanted to spend the time googling, I'm sure I could come up with a statement that contradicts the one you have above.

12.This is simply unknowable. Logic points to your conclusion being at least partly correct, but logic, while useful, cannot penetrate the hearts and minds of the Iranian leadership. I doubt we will ever see Iran conducting a nuclear test a la North Korea. But the real possibility of a parallel fuel cycle that we don't know about with the secret infrastructure to make a bomb happen (and a fanaticism that might make logic of any kind moot)dictates that we must assume the worst and act accordingly.

[Steve Hynd]

HI Rick,

I honestly don't see why we must "assume the worst", just as we were told to do with Iraq. And as to Iran's intent, well you'll recall the 2007 NIE was based in large part on the testimony of a defected general who could tell the IC a lot about that.

Regards, Steve